DOJ official Harmeet Dhillon said journalist Don Lemon is "on notice" for his role in monitoring a protest that stormed a church in Minneapolis.

Former CNN host Don Lemon has been put "on notice" by the Justice Department after he joined anti-ICE agitators who stormed a church in St. Paul during a service on Sunday.

Lemon, an independent journalist since being fired by CNN in 2023, has been documenting the Minnesota chaos following the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good. He entered the Cities Church along with anti-ICE agitators and began filming, telling viewers that "the freedom to protest" is what the First Amendment is all about.

But Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, disagrees with Lemon.

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"A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service. You are on notice," Dhillon wrote on X.

Dhillon also said she is in touch with Attorney General Pamela Bondi on the issue.

"We are all over it. We are investigating potential criminal violations of federal law," Dhillon wrote.

In an interview with Benny Johnson on Monday, Dhillon said Lemon had a presumption of innocence but Lemon's role as a journalist wasn't necessarily a "shield" for him being a potential party to a crime.

"Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility. He went into the facility, and then he began ‘committing journalism,’ as if that’s sort of a shield from being a part, an embedded part of a criminal conspiracy," Dhillon said. 

"It isn’t and so we’re getting our ducks in a row, putting the facts together, and this is a very serious matter," she continued. "Come next Sunday, nobody should think in the United States that they’re going to be able to get away with this. Everyone in the protest community needs to know that the fullest force of the federal government is going to come down and prevent this from happening and put people away for a long, long time." 

Lemon told Fox News Digital that he stands by his reporting and has faced online threats as a result. 

"It’s notable that I’ve been cast as the face of a protest I was covering as a journalist — especially since I wasn’t the only reporter there. That framing is telling. What’s even more telling is the barrage of violent threats, along with homophobic and racist slurs, directed at me online by MAGA supporters and amplified by parts of the right-wing press," Lemon told Fox News Digital. 

"If this much time and energy is going to be spent manufacturing outrage, it would be far better used investigating the tragic death of Renee Nicole Good— the very issue that brought people into the streets in the first place," Lemon continued. "I stand by my reporting.

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Prior to Dhillon’s appearance on "The Benny Johnson Show," Lemon responded to her social media post suggesting the DOJ was "investigating the potential violations of the federal FACE Act by these people desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers."

"So, I have no affiliation to that organization. I didn't even know they were going to this church until we followed them there. We were there chronicling protests. Once the protest started in the church, we did an act of journalism, which was report on it and talk to the people who were involved, which included a pastor and members of the church and members of the organization. That's it. It’s called journalism. First Amendment, all that stuff, for all of you people who believe in the First Amendment, absolutists, there you go," Lemon said on a video posted to Instagram. 

"So why don't you talk to the actual person who is in charge of the organization and whose idea was to have the protests at the church before you start blaming me for stuff for which you have no idea? Thank you for your attention to this matter," he continued.

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Lemon was fired by CNN in 2023 after 17 years at the network and now hosts an independent show.

During his coverage on Sunday, Lemon asked a church leader what he thought of the interruption. Lemon appeared to be speaking to Cities Church lead pastor Jonathan Parnell, as per an image on the church's website.

"This is unacceptable, it's shameful. It's shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship," the pastor responded. "I have to take care of my flock."

Lemon replied that there is a constitutional right to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest.

"We're here to worship, we're here to worship Jesus, because that's the hope of these cities, that's the hope of the world, is Jesus Christ," the pastor responded. "We're here to worship Jesus. That's why we're here, that's what we're about."

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Lemon asked the pastor if he tried to talk to the anti-ICE agitators, and the pastor said no one had been willing to speak to him.

The pastor then asked Lemon to leave the church. 

Cities Church did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

The FACE Act makes it a federal crime, with potentially steep fines and jail time, to use or threaten to use force to "injure, intimidate, or interfere" with a person seeking reproductive health services, or with a person lawfully trying to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. It also prohibits intentional property damage to a facility providing reproductive health services or a place of religious worship. 

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom and Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.